How to Build Your Metabolism and Lose Fat Faster

 

Many people want to know how to build their metabolism in order to lose fat faster or be able to eat more without gaining fat.

 

Well, this is actually pretty easy to do, and I’m going to show you how in this article.

First, however, I want to ensure that you understand the word metabolism itself, because most people don’t.

Metabolism refers to the series of processes by which molecules from food are broken down to release energy, which is then used to fuel the cells in the body and to create more complex molecules used for building new cells. Metabolism is necessary for life and is how the body creates and maintains the cells which make it up.

When the body becomes hungry one’s metabolism slows down and less energy is released. The longer one waits between meals, the slower one’s metabolism goes.

This process is simply a product of evolution. Many thousands of years ago, when our ancestors were roaming the wilderness, they sometimes journeyed for days without food and their bodies lived off fat stores. The body learned to burn the fat as slowly as possible because it didn’t know when it would be fed again.

Starving, they would finally kill an animal and feast, and their bodies knew to prepare for the next bout of starvation by storing fat. Having fat was literally a matter of life and death.

This genetic programming is still in us, ready to be used. If you starve your body, it will burn fat to stay alive, but it will also slow down its metabolic rate to conserve energy and it will be fully prepared to store fat once you start feeding it more again.

So, what does this mean for fat loss? Well, it means that you have to show your body that it has no reason to store excess fat and, in a sense, coax it to the level that you desire. And the same goes for building muscle: If you don’t provide your body with the perfect building conditions (proper training, proper nutrition, and proper rest), it will be inclined to simply not grow its muscles.

THE TWO THINGS YOU MUST DO TO BUILD YOUR METABOLISM

So, how do you speed up or “build” your metabolism? There are really only two things you have to do to accomplish this:

Eat Small, Frequent Meals

Most people have heard this advice before, but they don’t understand why.

By putting food in your body every three hours (or so), it is constantly having to work on breaking it down. This not only provides you with a steady stream of energy, but it prevents hunger pangs and actually speeds up your metabolic rate, which, after enough time, can become naturally quite higher than when you started eating this way (allowing you to eat more calories and not gain fat).

Feeding your body every few hours also keeps it from ever going into “starvation mode,” which completely wrecks your long-term fat loss potentials. You want your body to know that it will get food every few hours and thus not have to hold onto unnecessary amounts of fat.

How you plan your meals is important too. You can read more about this in my article on eating plans for building muscle.

Exercise Regularly

This comes as no surprise, of course, but what types of exercise? Weight lifting or cardio? Both. Weight lifting helps build muscle, and every pound of muscle in your body burns calories (studies show that a pound of muscle burns about 6 calories per day). Thus, having more muscle means having a faster metabolism!

Cardio not only accelerates fat loss by burning calories, but it too speeds up your metabolic rate.

Now, what does “regularly” mean? I recommend you exercise 3-5 days per week, every week, to see maximum gains.

SUMMARY

Building your metabolism really only requires those two steps: eat small, frequent meals and exercise regularly. Slowly but surely, your body will naturally burn more and more calories and put on less and less fat.